The East German state and the Stasi helped the NKVD identify 'undesirables' to be sent there, they also ran the place themselves for a while, by denying that you are showing your true colours. I've head estimates of about 12,000 Germans dying there.......

And as usual, trying to divert attention away from your Stasi mates by bringing in irrelevance isn't going to help. So which is it to be? The state was a corrupt dictatorship which you were happy to support because .....socialist solidarity regardless of the reality or The Stasi were the Shield and Sword of the party and could do no wrong?

LE

What is it with you? Just because I have some ex-Stasi friends, you assume (wrongly) that I defend anything associated with the organisation. That's not the case at all. You say: "you're defending camp guards" as a definitive statement, when it's really just your own, biased personal opinion. An assumption that has no basis in fact.

You single-mindedly pursue some fantasised notion that the Stasi had an agent or a nark on practically every street corner, watching folks intensely and just waiting to pounce. From personal and practical experience I know for a fact that the allegedly all-pervading presence of the Stasi that you passionately espouse is a myth. On an everyday and normal basis, the Stasi "influence" was negligible. Millions of GDR citizens went about their daily occasions and were never bothered/hassled by the Stasi. Sure, they were a complete pain in the arse as a potential constant background presence, but it was entirely possible to live a rich and fulfilling life in the GDR without every coming into contact with them.

Indeed, since 9/11, when "terrorism" became the enemy de jour, many of my good friends in the former GDR state that the intensity of surveillance and the limitations imposed on their human and civil rights goes far further than anything they ever experienced with the Stasi. And those are exactly the folks who're in a position to make accurate and relevant comparisons.

But let's just assume for a moment that the Stasi really was this malignant and evil organisation that spooks around in your head. We, allegedly, knowhow they operated, so why aren't we doing all we can to prevent a repeat performance in our own countries? Look at the way many Capitalist nations are adopting highly authoritarian approaches to "uphold the law" and no-one's doing anything to stop them. George Orwell's 1984 is just around the corner and we're all walking blindly into it. That should give us food for thought.

Unlike you Bugsy (You walting twat) I actually did know an ex-stasi bloke. He was my wife's grandmother's sister's husband, Alexander. At the end of the war, all the family headed west-ish. Some got as far as NRW while two of the sisters remained in what became east Berlin. Alexander was mainly involved in counter-smuggling operations, especially on aircraft and trains. This mostly involved breaking up black market and illegal trade gangs.

After the wall came down, he and Herta (His wife) often came over to visit (especially for funerals and weddings etc.) and, to be fair, Alexander was a decent-ish bloke, bearing in mind his background. When sober he was very conservative in his manners, a little defensive of the socialist regime maybe, but when the father-in-law let the pils and schnapps flow he became a little more boastful and expansive.

Be under no illusion, the Stasi had informers everywhere. Every petty criminal, every ex-convict, loyal subjects and people who were just downright sneaky gits.

He never got an easy ride from the Wessies, but he was unapologetic and in many ways proud of his allegiance to the socialist regimes of the Warsaw Pact. He never liked me, at the time a WO in the British Army, but he never hated me either.

He died about 15 years ago so I can't ask him anything, but the picture you try to paint of a harmonious society is just bullshit.

LE

What is it with you? Just because I have some ex-Stasi friends, you assume (wrongly) that I defend anything associated with the organisation. That's not the case at all. You say: "you're defending camp guards" as a definitive statement, when it's really just your own, biased personal opinion. An assumption that has no basis in fact.

You single-mindedly pursue some fantasised notion that the Stasi had an agent or a nark on practically every street corner, watching folks intensely and just waiting to pounce. From personal and practical experience I know for a fact that the allegedly all-pervading presence of the Stasi that you passionately espouse is a myth. On an everyday and normal basis, the Stasi "influence" was negligible. Millions of GDR citizens went about their daily occasions and were never bothered/hassled by the Stasi. Sure, they were a complete pain in the arse as a potential constant background presence, but it was entirely possible to live a rich and fulfilling life in the GDR without every coming into contact with them.

Indeed, since 9/11, when "terrorism" became the enemy de jour, many of my good friends in the former GDR state that the intensity of surveillance and the limitations imposed on their human and civil rights goes far further than anything they ever experienced with the Stasi. And those are exactly the folks who're in a position to make accurate and relevant comparisons.

But let's just assume for a moment that the Stasi really was this malignant and evil organisation that spooks around in your head. We, allegedly, knowhow they operated, so why aren't we doing all we can to prevent a repeat performance in our own countries? Look at the way many Capitalist nations are adopting highly authoritarian approaches to "uphold the law" and no-one's doing anything to stop them. George Orwell's 1984 is just around the corner and we're all walking blindly into it. That should give us food for thought.

Bugsy. Without fail you always seem to get hyper-sensitive when people call you out.
Just take a chill pill will you.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That is one of the benefits of living in a free and open society. Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else. It's how society works old love.
I asked you the question about your Stasi mates, not (as I said) to trap you or anything, but because I was genuinely interested as to the reasons why you would associate yourself with ex members of an organisation, that (whether you like it or not) most people find abhorrent.
Surely, you must understand that the majority of arrsers are not going to accept your viewpoint of the Stasi?
Whether you believe, that your detractors do not understand how life was for you in the DDR, is neither here nor there.
To most of us arrsers, you present a one sided and revisionist form of history.
So again. Chill out. Accept the fact that the majority of us will never agree with you politically, and try to enjoy arrse for what it is.

On ROPS

Bugsy. Without fail you always seem to get hyper-sensitive when people call you out.
Just take a chill pill will you.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That is one of the benefits of living in a free and open society. Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else. It's how society works old love.
I asked you the question about your Stasi mates, not (as I said) to trap you or anything, but because I was genuinely interested as to the reasons why you would associate yourself with ex members of an organisation, that (whether you like it or not) most people find abhorrent.
Surely, you must understand that the majority of arrsers are not going to accept your viewpoint of the Stasi?
Whether you believe, that your detractors do not understand how life was for you in the DDR, is neither here nor there.
To most of us arrsers, you present a one sided and revisionist form of history.
So again. Chill out. Accept the fact that the majority of us will never agree with you politically, and try to enjoy arrse for what it is.

Is that the way you see it? That they're calling me out? The point I'm trying to make is that, while recognising that the GDR was a corrupt, authoritarian, repressive, one-party state, I really liked living there. The folks had a highly developed cultural scene, with something for everyone, an astonishing level of everyday solidarity, social inclusion and a profound sense of common purpose that simply can't be found in any other society nowadays. What's even more important, from my point of view anyway, was that they genuinely enjoyed life because they were permanently relieved of all the constant worries and anxieties that perniciously rot the fabric of Capitalist societies and make it into a desperate rat-race. Certainly, that's a subjective view of things, but how else am I supposed to present it?

However, when I put that forward as my own personal reason for really liking the experience of living in the GDR, the invariable response is that it's all bullshit and that's not how it was at all. There are only a few ARRSErs who've been to the GDR on anything more than a day-outing basis. And I believe I'm the only one who actually lived and worked there as a normal citizen (whereby I could be wrong in my assumption there). In spite of that, ARRSErs who know practically nothing about the place doggedly maintain that I'm engaging in some sort of revisionist exercise when all I'm doing is presenting my case as I saw it. There were most certainly a lot of things wrong with the GDR which didn't escape my attention, but there were also a lot of things right about the place. For me, personally and on balance, the good things (pertaining in particular to the human interactions I experienced) far outweighed the bad aspects. But even with that view, I'm constantly told that I've got it all wrong.

You remarked that everyone is entitled to their opinion, which is a sentiment I heartily endorse. But that seems to exclude me, because my personal and subjective opinion is immediately decried as false. That's not what you could call tolerance, is it?

LE

Bugsy, I appreciate what you are saying. However; like I said people are not generally going to accept your pov because they saw that time in history totally differently to you.
Just accept the fact that most people will not agree with you.
Personally speaking; I don't agree with your views of the DDR, and definately not of the Stasi because it is counter to everything that I've learnt about them.
Which, without question was in the negative. Yes, you are well within your right (as someone who actually lived in the DDR at the time) to present a counter argument, as to what I was taught about that period in history.
However, like I've already said; you must accept the fact that I, or others will generally disagree with you because of your staunch views.
I told you the other day remember, that you do (sometimes) post the odd comment (outside of politics) where you can be informative and funny. And I stand by this belief.
You'd be a lot better, being this type of arrser tbh.

GCM

LE

So apart from the Czechs and the Germans saying no files exist, oh and the meetings in the House of Commons Tea room when the dates were checked happened 1, on a Saturday(when it's closed presumably) and also 2, when he was at a meeting elsewhere in the country, the 'spy' has been discredited by his own Right Wing Govt, Corbyn knowingly passed a copy of the Sunday People..........he's guilty as charged in the Court of media fiction then.....

Clanker

Jeremy Corbyn seems to think it sufficient to laugh off the criticism he has faced for meeting with a Czechoslovak intelligence officer in the 1980s. It is not. I worked against the Czechoslovak Services during my early career in MI6, I served in Prague and I spoke Czech. Everything I learned about the way those services, known as the StB, operated tells me that these accusations should be taken seriously.
Firstly, there is the codename given to Corbyn by the StB, "COB". If the StB had allocated him a pseudonym, it meant that they had opened an operational file. They would only do that if they had reason to be interested in him as a target and they had assessed him as someone with whom to develop a relationship.
As has been repeatedly made clear, the Cold War Czechoslovak spy Jan Sarkocy is a fantasist whose claims are entirely false and becoming more absurd by the day.Corbyn spokesperson
The Czechoslovak Services had a history of attempting to recruit Members of Parliament and they started out by trying to find who among them got drunk, who was in debt, who had personal problems and whose career was on a downward trend.
It was not necessary to know state secrets to be of interest; simply to know a lot of what was going on inside Parliament. The StB’s ultimate aim, therefore, was to identify who might be recruitable and as step towards that goal to cultivate those willing to talk to them in order to get them to divulge, often unwittingly, who those vulnerable individuals might be.
It is mundane work undertaken by a member of a foreign intelligence service, but still a significant threat to our national security. Anybody with sense would have taken care to avoid someone like Jan Sarkocy, the intelligence officer in question.

Secondly, there is the absurd suggestion that Corbyn could not have know that Sarkocy was a Czechoslovak intelligence officer. It was well known at the time that the StB was active on behalf of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, and there was a well established pattern that the StB had followed in trying to recruit British politicians, including three MPs that they had recruited successfully in 1960s.
By the standards of Central Europe, the Czechs were extremely westernised. The Russians regarded them as more sophisticated than other parts of their Communist empire and particularly adept at challenging intelligence work. Soviet bloc diplomats were also being regularly expelled from the UK for espionage activities during this period. Corbyn surely would have been well aware of this.
Even had he been so naive that he had not seen through Sarkocy’s diplomatic cover, the regime Sarkocy represented was known to be one of the nastiest in Central Europe, continuing to persecute its dissidents right up until the Velvet Revolution. They were not people with whom to consort without sharing their extreme views. Corbyn seems to have enjoyed rubbing shoulders with regimes that were undemocratic, conducted mass surveillance of their populations and ruled by a combination of force and fear.

Thirdly, Labour has said that Sarkocy should not be taken seriously and that his claims are absurd. Discussion I have had with friends close to the current Czech intelligence community suggest otherwise.

Sarkocy is behind the claim that Andrej Babis, the current Czech prime minister, collaborated with the Communist regime, which is being taken seriously in his country. Babis's lawsuit against those claims, which he says are false, was last week dismissed by a Slovak court. There is therefore some grounds for thinking that Sarkocy could be telling the truth about Corbyn.
Corbyn has questions to answer. How many meetings did he, in fact, have with Sarkocy? If only a couple, or the single one that Corbyn recalls, his behaviour can be put down to stupidity. If Sarkocy is telling the truth and not exaggerating when he says there were many more and that money changed hands (which again Corbyn denies), then this affair takes on a completely different aspect.
Finally, there is the issue of how the StB documents on Corbyn entered the public domain. I suspect that someone with access to the StB archives found them, noticed they were about Corbyn, realised they were of value and sold them on. We do not know if further documents exist but, if they do, and contain more incriminating information, it leaves Corbyn – who could yet become Prime Minister – in a very awkward position.

Sir Richard Dearlove was head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004

However, it is agreed that the 'Prague File' is genuine and not a fake. So there was good reason for it to be raised. The DT article has raised the question, that I have previously stated, who picked up on this file and got it into the public domain? DT suggests it could be some clerk who connected the name and decided to make a £, Czech Crown or Euro or two? but others ?? have picked up on it.

But, remembering Lord Archer and Jonathan Aitken, JC is in deep if something else turns up - like Mrs M finding that Stasi file in her sandwich drawer or even Mr P in Moscow produces a file in a puff of green smoke?

MIA

People forget that Czechoslovakia was a hard line warsaw pact country that wouldn't hesitate to eliminate any opposition. As others have said, most people forget that not long after the war when the communists took power, they eliminated any opposition. see this example Jan Masaryk - Wikipedia
snip ..In February 1948 the majority of the non-communist cabinet members resigned, hoping to force new elections, but instead a communist government under Gottwald was formed in what became known as the Czech coup (Victorious February in the Eastern Bloc).[4][5]Masaryk remained Foreign Minister, and was the only prominent minister in the new government who was neither a Communist nor a fellow traveller.[5] However, he was apparently uncertain about his decision[citation needed] and possibly regretted his decision not to oppose the communist coup by broadcasting to the Czech people on national radio, where he was a much loved celebrity.
On 10 March 1948 Masaryk was found dead, dressed only in his pajamas, in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry (the Černín Palace in Prague) below his bathroom window.[7] The initial investigation by the Ministry of the Interior stated that he had committed suicide by jumping out of the window, although for a long time it has been believed by some that he was murdered by the nascent Communist government.[4][7][8] (Others in the country put it thus: "Jan Masaryk was a very tidy man. He was such a tidy man that when he jumped he shut the window after himself.") On the other hand, many of his close associates (e.g. his secretary Antonín Sum, or Viktor Fischl) have always defended the suicide story.
In a second investigation taken in 1968 during the Prague Spring, Masaryk's death was ruled an accident, not excluding a murder[9]and a third investigation in the early 1990s after the Velvet Revolution concluded that it had been a murder.

GCM

However, it is agreed that the 'Prague File' is genuine and not a fake. So there was good reason for it to be raised. The DT article has raised the question, that I have previously stated, who picked up on this file and got it into the public domain? DT suggests it could be some clerk who connected the name and decided to make a £, Czech Crown or Euro or two? but others ?? have picked up on it.

But, remembering Lord Archer and Jonathan Aitken, JC is in deep if something else turns up - like Mrs M finding that Stasi file in her sandwich drawer or even Mr P in Moscow produces a file in a puff of green smoke?